


the skies i'm under

by pomegrenadier



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Family, Force Ghosts, Gen, Identity Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-26
Updated: 2018-04-26
Packaged: 2019-04-28 01:57:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14439015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pomegrenadier/pseuds/pomegrenadier
Summary: Ben is sixteen years old and he’s digging through a muddy heap of leaves and bickering with his grandfather’s ghost.“This is not necessary,” says Darth Vader, arms folded, stern and imposing.





	the skies i'm under

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to my tumblr, forever ago. Probably won't continue but I liked the scenes I already had written, so here they are.

Ben is sixteen years old and he’s digging through a muddy heap of leaves and bickering with his grandfather’s ghost.

“This is not necessary,” says Darth Vader, arms folded, stern and imposing.

“Maybe, but I want to find it,” says Ben, who is thinking of changing his name to something else, something that doesn’t echo _Kenobi, Jedi, hero, dead._

A pause. Then: “Must I be present for the exhuming of my own corpse?”

“You can leave whenever you want, you know.”

Vader remains impassive, but Ben gets the impression he’s debating whether or not to go poof. In the end, he stays, and watches with every appearance of morbid fascination as Ben digs up a half-melted helmet. “Is my skull still inside?” he asks, in a valiant attempt at nonchalance.

Ben brushes off some of the ash and dirt, and rattles the helmet a little. More dirt falls out through the bottom. “Yup.”

Vader moves, very slightly, just a tiny twitch of the shoulders and chest. Ben suspects he’s either holding back laughter or resisting the urge to smack himself in the forehead. Helmet. Whatever. It changes, day to day; sometimes he appears as a young man with a mane of dark gold hair, and sometimes he appears as a faceless black-armored giant in a billowing cloak. Ben’s used to it. He’s also used to his grandfather’s long silences. It’s … a relief, in many ways. Always has been. His living family is so _loud_.

Ben returns his attention to the helmet. He’s fairly certain that it’s not his imagination—it really does feel cold, in the Force. As if Vader’s misery and pain are still bouncing around inside, along with, well, his skull.

“I’m sorry,” says Ben. He doesn’t clarify, and Vader doesn’t ask.

“I grew accustomed to it,” he says instead.

**o.O.o**

Ben Organa was the son of a Senator and a smuggler who don’t seem to like each other all that much, even when they’re living together. He was the apprentice of a legend who’s trying to rebuild something from the wreckage the Jedi Purge left behind. He was supposed to be the brightest star of the new generation, the hope of the galaxy, the first of the new Jedi, the realization of the Alliance’s dreams.

Ben Organa was tired, and lonely, and sad.

_Kylo_ is still tired, but he has his grandfather, and he has the Force, and he has his ship.

**o.O.o**

They stop to refuel on a backwater planet so much like Tatooine that Vader nearly laughs aloud in bitterness. Kylo just stands on the hard-packed sand and lets the warmth seep up through the soles of his shoes, in through his clothes, until the chill of space fades away.

He opens his eyes when the Force tugs at his attention. He opens his eyes, and there’s a young girl staring at him from the shade of a nearby tent, her grubby little hands still busy with an even grubbier cloth, cleaning the grime off a piece of junk.

The Force feels like the quiet between the end of the orchestra’s tuning and the downbeat of the first measure. The faintest echo of sound, the expectation of a symphony, but not yet,  not yet—waiting for the signal to burst into music.

“Who are you?” Kylo asks, frowning.

The girl scowls back at him. “I’m Rey,” she says, pointy chin jutting out defiantly. “Who are you supposed to be?”

“My name is—Kylo,” he says, and he only stumbles a little.

“Why are you standing around with your eyes closed?”

“I was just enjoying the sun. It’s nice.”

“No it’s not,” Rey informs him. “And you’ll get sand in your everything if you stay out there much longer.”

Vader does laugh, then, gleeful. “She’s not wrong,” he says.

“Of course I’m not wrong!” Rey says hotly.

And the symphony begins.

**o.O.o**


End file.
